I live in the Sierra's and have bear(s). Had to clean up my garbage can yesterday. Have seen them on my patio and at the moment there is scat on the patio about 5 feet from the glass door. All the bears I have seen have been black bears. Some have been good sized. Caught one once about a month or so ago on the patio, tried to get a picture but as soon as he heard the door, he was gone in a flash. I do have "trail camera" pictures. If it wasn't for my garbage can, I wouldn't care at all. I have motion triggered flood lights so I can see the animals and in 10 years have seen the bear in person 3 or 4 times. I believe the only bears indigenous are black bear. Brown bears are supposed not to be native to California. All of my sightings have been at night and since I don't roam at night, they don't seem to be a threat. I have heard that compressed air horns work good for bears and you can always use them at football games too.

==================================================
I've never put up a foto before, but I'll give it a try. This is from a bear encounter at The Dardanelle Resort on Sonora Pass over the 4th of July. This was a BIG bear, but well mannered and well dressed. Let's hope all encounters come out as well !

So......early that morning, around 1:30 am, in the middle of the night…or I should say, morning, I awoke….
Hmmp…Well, that was strange and so unusual for me, as one who normally sleeps like a rock…
But then in the quiet of the night I heard what had shaken me from my sleep. A distinctive snort, it was an animal snort… And it sounded like it was just on the other side of my tent wall!!!!
There it was again!!! A bear!!!
Oh my, oh my...What to do?...What to do…..?
Perhaps if I just lie here quietly he'll move on, maybe go over to the picnic table where my cooking stuff might intrigue him.
Holding my breath, I wait...
Damn it...there's another grunt and for sure it sounds like he's sitting right there behind my tent.
And again!!!...
Good gosh, mother of god, it now sounds like a snore or two between his grunts...Has he decided to lie down and nap, right here next to my tent!!!
Quietly, I decide I to do something, and the time seemed right, while he was snoozing.
So, holding my breath, I sat up and sorted out where my stuff was... my car keys… my phone....the flashlight...

...Damn. Damn!!!.....There's that snort again!!!
Now I know there ain't no bear out there...But wait. Could that sound be coming from the campsite across the road? My, oh my…..perhaps…That truck top camper was a soft sided pop-up type... But could a human grunt and snore that loud?
End of story......*
I awoke in the morning with the daylight and sure enough, the grunts and snorts were still going strong....and coming from the new camper across the way...

You're not alone.

We were at Grand Coulee Dam, camping in a van, and I walked to the restroom in the middle of the night. I was nearly inside when I heard what I could only identify as a coyote, snarling, close by.

I hurried into the restroom, helped push the heavy self-closing (but slow) door shut, and took care of things; then I checked outside.

I could still hear it.

I lurked and checked, lurked and checked for over an hour while the huge mosquito eaters fluttered all around me, drawn by the restroom lights. I got more and more tired and even bored, colder and more miserable until I finally decided it was the coyote or me.

I decided I'd make a break for it and if it came to combat, I'd fight and scream my loudest.

I slipped out of the restroom and for the first time was able to pinpoint the sound--coming from a nearby tent. Yup. Same deal.

Inside the park was a large parking lot area and there was a bear lumbering around it. My parents made a number of comments about the bear, and my sister and I pointed it out to our little dog. "Look at the bear! That's a bear!"

My mother opened up a pack of cookies and my father rolled down his window and hooted at the bear, which came right over, taking the first of the cookies with its big tongue.

Between them, they fed the whole pack of sugar cookies through the car window to the bear--

--and then they ran out of cookies.

My dad tried rolling up the window, but the bear hooked its YUUUUUGE claws over the edge and began to shake the car.

Meanwhile, our 14-pound terrier was going berserk, clawing my legs to bits. Sure enough, he was a "bear dog," as described in Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck. You just never know.

My mother was shrieking at this point, the dog was raving, and the car was rocking from side to side.

Lucky for us, some other stupid tourist offered food from across the parking lot, and the bear turned its attention to them.

Later, my mother used the episode as a chance to impart some moral wisdom, but my sister and I had already gotten the point.

For the rest of his 22 years, our dog would leap up savagely at the word, "Bear!" even from a sound sleep. It never lost it's charm for me to taunt him, though I'm sure he resented it greatly.

We get black bears frequently in our neighbourhood and on our local hiking trails.
We do use bear bells attached to packs or belts and often put on on the dogs collars for safe measure. We and the children in the area are taught as you suggest to make lots of noise. Most black bears will run from any sound.

If they come into the yard we are told not to stop and take pictures but instead get them to leave ASP by yelling at them and bang pots or use a air horn. Its actually rare for one not to take off right away.

As suggested about the only time they will not take off is if they are chowing down on something - just leave it and let it finish it up - even if it is in your yard or campsite.

The ones that do not run have more often than not have become to accustomed to being around humans and they are the dangerous ones. Or as they are called here " A problem bear".

In our community bears are not normally shot for coming into busy neighbourhoods - even if they decide to take a swim in your hot tub or pool or a walk through the local Safeway. instead the wildlife officers if called (usually not) will come and look around to see what you have out in your yard that is attracting them - things such a bird feeder, dirty BQ, garbage cans outside and fruit from a fruit tree left laying on the ground will get you a large fine for attracting wild life.... the bear gets off free & left alone to return another day.

If a bear is frequently visiting your yard and staring to show signs it is become to accustom to humans it will be trapped and tagged and take a far distance away. If it returns to the area once its been tagged it will probable be its last visit. :-(

Grizzly bears are a whole different matter and all bets are off with them!

As conservation biologists who have spent 25+ years living in Central America (Now we are Scampers in the great white north) and working from Mexico to Bolivia, we have had many "predatory" wildlife encounters. My wife, to paraphrase our international conservation organization coordinator "She has seen more jaguars while on foot than any living white woman." OK, she has seen >25 jaguars while on foot. Pumas, AKA mountain lions? Well, she had so many face-to-face encounters (>18) that curdled my being and I always wished she would stop!

One afternoon 3 - 3/4 grown puma cubs followed here up our driveway in Belize, likely attracted to our 12 lb Maltese/Havanese dog nearly to the back steps of our house leading to the door before scampering off into the bush.

As conservation field biologists who were part of a global conservation research organization for more than a quarter century, we occasionally met with other conservation ecologists from the world over. For North America, the standing joke was you could always differentiate Grizzly bear scat from black bear scat. Black bears (being smaller) usually had mixed berries and an occasional rodent in their poop. While it may not have been uncommon to find jingle bells... like worn by hikers, in Grizzly scat.

Hmm.

Now that we are back in the U.S. permanently we still aspire to see a bear in the wild. Waiting for our Alaskan Scamp adventure and if we can manage to caravan with some folks that would be even better.

__________________
Conservation biologist specializing in bats, however seriously about stepping aside from paid work and just Scamping and painting.

If you head up the Al-Can in spring, you are pretty much guaranteed to see blackbear and griz, bison, bighorn sheep, and plenty of other large fauna grazing on the new growth on the sides of the highway in northern BC and the Yukon. It is a marvelous time to travel north.

We live literally in town but just a few hundred yards from the Pike National Forest. There is a ravine with a stream in our yard which is the forest equivalent of an interstate highway.

Besides cougar tracks in the snow next to our house there was once an unlikely set of three cougars that lived under a neighbors deck for a short while. They were two yearlings and a two year old. (I only know that because a wildlife officer told me.) I didn't see when the dead fawn was deposited in our yard (I thought they cached them??) but I did get to watch the yearlings fight over it. I live in the low IQ district (some blame hypoxia) and folks here just leave their dogs loose. After some mystery missing dog quota was achieved the wildlife folks sedated and transported the cats to the mountains. Apparently one tranquilizer needle hit a blood vessel and that one died. These were the only cougars I've seen live.

We don't see many bears but this year we've only seen one pile of scat. No bears at all. One winter we did see tracks in the snow of a bear getting on it's hind legs to look in a basement window.

We haven't had rabbits for years. For (I guess) two years we haven't had foxes apparently due to distemper. Hence the rabbits. We have for the first time lots of underground rodents (I think gophers, moles, voles??) apparently due to the absence of foxes. The first message in this thread talked of bears eating these boring rodents. Well, I wish they would!!

I've had many encounters with black bears, and every time the bear left in a rush, so I don't worry about black bears. Follow good practices in keeping trash and food in proper containers, don't get between a mom and her cubs, and black bears will leave you alone.

Grizzlies are another issue. I always stay aware of my surroundings in grizzly country, because they are far more dangerous than a black bear.

Update: I was just putting a new sticker on my boat trailer's license plate. The trailer is parked next to a rock wall. I heard snorting and turned. About 10 feet horizontally away from me and about seven feet above me was a very black medium sized bear. No ear tags indicating that he/she hasn't been a problem. I yelled and he/she ran off, continuing to not be a problem!!

For those that may be interested, I have posted some of my wildlife pictures on FB and could post some here. All of my albums are "public" so you should be able to browse at your leisure. I do think that Brown Bears have a WHOLE different personality than Black Bears. That said, I don't challenge them. I just have never been fearful.